Purchase Of Rail Land Closes Gap

February 05, 1992|By SANDRA JAMES; Courant Staff Writer

PLAINVILLE — The state's purchase of the last stretch of Boston & Maine north-south railroad property in Connecticut preserves a valuable right of way for future transportation needs, state officials said.

"If it's not saved it gets broken up into parcels, and the cost to reassemble would be astronomical," said Richard Rathbun, director of the office of rail at the state Department of Transportation. "It just makes sense to keep it together."

In January, the state, which had the right of first refusal, bought the rail line property for $1.3 million from the Massachusetts-based Boston & Maine Corp.

Boston & Maine had been trying for more than a year to abandon service on the railroad, which dates to the 1800s. Railroad officials said it was too expensive to operate.

For years, the south-to-north line was a profitable one carrying freight, Rathbun said, but began to lose money in recent years.

Up until October, Sanford & Hawley Inc., a Farmington lumber company, had been using the railroad to carry its products. The company, which has been operating in Farmington since 1884, began using the rail line in the 1960s, said Stephen Johnson, operations manager for Sanford & Hawley.

The section of rail line, which runs 8 miles from Plainville to Avon, now completes the state's ownership of the rail properties from Plainville to the Massachusetts line. That complete rail-line property runs 24 miles, Rathbun said.

While there is no short-term use for the land, Rathbun said, it will be available if the state needs the parcel.

"It has the potential for future use for transit or highway," he said.

The tracks are being removed. Those that are good will be reused at other locations, and others will be sold for scrap, said Colin Pease, executive vice president of Boston & Maine.

The state has been buying up rights of way 20 years. It has bought rail-line property that railroads still are using, and other property for short- or long-term uses, Rathbun said.